Yéanzi

Yéanzi was born in 1988 in Katiola, Ivory Coast. He lives and works in Bingerville, Ivory Coast

Yéanzi studied painting and photography at Lycée d’Enseignement Artistique de Cocody and École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Abidjan, where he graduated top of the class in 2012. He also worked as portraitist for about a decade.

From 2013 onwards, he focused on his personal artwork using melted plastic. This method enables him to alter his relationship with portraiture and create paint less paintings of the people that surround him in his daily life. With this process, he collects each individual’s story; he uses their nicknames as titles and their remarkable identities, the mask they wear in public, to reveal their personalities in watermark.

Yéanzi was awarded several prizes and distinctions, namely, first prize in painting in the cultural contest ‘‘Cote d’Ivoire-Israël’’ in 2008 and the honor diploma of the Ivoirian National Order of Merit in 2012. In 2013, he was the winner of the ‘‘Grand Prix Nairay Guy’’ and ‘‘Prix Bene Hoane’’. The same year, he was selected to participate in ‘‘Jeux de la Francophonie’’ in Nice, France.

His work was exhibited for the first time in a group show at Galerie Eureka – Abidjan in 2010. He participated in the exhibition Abidjan on dit quoi? Jeunes talents at Rotonde des Arts in 2012 and in the collective exhibition AAA (Abidjan Arts Actuels) at Fondation Donwahi in 2014.

In 2015, Galerie Cecile Fakhoury dedicated the solo exhibition persona to him. The same year, his work was presented in the exhibition Platform at gallery Art Twenty One (ART21) in Lagos, Nigeria. In 2016, Yéanzi’s artworks were exhibited in the group show Une collection particulière in the frame of the Fringe of the 12th Dakar Biennale.